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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

A second look - Burnas and TankBustas UP Lootas Down

When I first mentioned Orks and the elite selection of the codex, it was met with some hesitation and resistance from the rest of the internet. Here.

All of this is going to require a bit of pre-reading here, so once you get back you will see my evolution of thought from 6 months ago.

Nobz- Bread and Butter, Troops or Elites, Bike or in a Battlewagon. Just good.

Lootas- Lootas need to be taken in units of 15 or they don't do shit. Over the last few RTT's and GTs my Lootas have been piles of shit in 5 man squads. Speaking with the other top Ork's at the events. Same. 15 bodies or leave them at home.

Burnas - Divirsified Nobz are simple. They will either kill everyone or die trying. There are a few units tougher than Nobz, but for the most part, Nobs kill everything! Why am I talking about Nobz in the Burna section? They would appear to occupy the same role; Elite selection bruiser unit that kills stuff in CC. This could happen, but they are a lot softer than Nobz. They require a special timing to be fully useful. Either unleashing a barrage of flamer templates out of the side or jumping out and assaulting, the tactic for Burnas is not nearly as point and click as Nobz. To fully utilize the Burnas, you need to get good at counter assaulting.

"BLS, What the hell is counter-assaulting?!? Isn't that a Space Wolf thing?"

Yes, Space Jacobs get the USR: Counter Assault, but that's not what I am talking about. You need to let your Burnas lie in wait as a secondary wave to support either your Nobz that have 2nd or 3rd units piling onto them or a squad of Boyz that are in over their head. You have to make sure that your Burna Wagon is in the right place at the right time. That boils down to controlling the battlefield and where you engage your opponents. I know it's hard for most Ork Warbosses to plummet into the enemy headlong but the Burnas require more finesse and timing.

Tankbustas - Tankbustas have found a place in my heart. Not in my tournament list, but I can see how they could be effective at 1500 + points if you played a green tide. In which case, where Nobz and Burnas and Lootas seem out of place, Tankbustas seem awesome!! I am also seeing a new viability of a Green Tide style horde army for Orks, as a lot of the top caliber armies are very low model counts and you can literally smother some armies with bodies of Orks. Can you effectively play a Green Tide army in a time environment, that is up to the player. I would struggle, but I think it can be done. Tankbustas even work well in a Kan Wall list. They just keep getting better and better!

Kommandos - Having been wrecked by IG enough times, its fairly easy to see the value of Kommandos as backfield disruption. The problem with Kommandos isnt Kommandos, its the lack of ability to manipulate reserves rolls. That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with Kommandos. Relying on the dice to get your backfield harass is bad. Especially against IG or Psyflemen Dreads where you need them early. Other than that, they are cool still and Snikrot is awesome, I might run a list with Snikrot and Grotsnik this weekend.

I am hopeful again that Orks can remain competitive into the long future, just a different method to the same old mayhem.